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August 19, 2025, 8:35 PM
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Mediagazer
memeorandum
WeSmirchTop News
| New York Times: |
Sources: Meta considers downsizing its AI division, with some executives expected to leave, and is exploring using third-party models for its AI products — Meta is expected to announce a new restructuring of its artificial intelligence division amid internal tensions over the technology, people with knowledge of the plans said.
More: Gizmodo, Decrypt, Forbes, Fortune, and New York Magazine
Bluesky: @calbucci.com, @miggiesmalls, @edzitron.com, @carlquintanilla, and @brianmc
Threads: @firerock31, @svetim.fm, and @technologizer
X: @charlesrollet1, @charlesrollet1, @canteverdie, @mimansaj, @conorsen, @bindureddy, @mikeisaac, @bigblackjacobin, @zerohedge, @zerohedge, @birdyword, @mikeisaac, @birdyword, @andymstone, @mattrosoff, and @dowdedward
Forums: r/technology, r/singularity, r/BetterOffline, and Slashdot
| Riley Griffin / Bloomberg: |
Memo: Meta restructures Superintelligence Labs; Alexandr Wang heads TBD Lab, Robert Fergus heads FAIR, Nat Friedman heads products, Aparna Ramani heads Infra — Meta Platforms Inc. is splitting its newly formed artificial intelligence group into four distinct teams and reassigning …
More: eWeek, Capital Brief, and TechCrunch
Bluesky: @kurtwagner, @drgonzo123, @mgsiegler.com, and @edzitron.com
X: @shakeelhashim and @andrewcurran_
| Kanishka Singh / Reuters: |
US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard says the UK has dropped its mandate requiring Apple to provide a backdoor for accessing users' encrypted data — Britain has dropped its demand for the iPhone maker Apple (AAPL.O) to provide a “backdoor” that would have enabled access …
More: TechCrunch, Financial Times, CNN, CyberScoop, BBC, 9to5Mac, The Verge, The Hacker News, The Register, Politico, Japan Today, Big Brother Watch, Telegraph, Engadget, InfoRiskToday.com, The Guardian, Nextgov/FCW, New York Times, The National Pulse, The Japan Times, Forbes, The Record, Thurrott, iClarified, CNET, WinBuzzer, ZeroHedge News, Business Insider, iDrop News, The American Bazaar, The Daily Caller, Reclaim The Net, New York Post, Blaze Media, TechRadar, Ars Technica, PYMNTS.com, Daily Mail, iPhone in Canada, PCMag, UPI, MacTech.com, Computerworld, AppleInsider, NBC News, and The Independent
Bluesky: @paulbernal, @tomwarren.co.uk, @glynmoody, @jjaron, and @billstewart
Mastodon: @jwildeboer@social … and @carnage4life@mas.to
X: @dnigabbard, @artemisfornow, @reclaimthenethq, @daviddavismp, @daviddavismp, @odnigov, @alexharmstrong, @mirandadevine, @elonmusk, @prestonjbyrne, @allumbokhari, @markgurman, @prestonjbyrne, @johnwilson, @timsweeneyepic, @timsweeneyepic, and @warrendavidson. LinkedIn: Gus Hosein
Forums: r/cybersecurity, r/news, r/anime_titties, r/ukpolitics, r/apple, r/privacy, r/DeclineIntoCensorship, and Slashdot
| Angel Au-Yeung / Wall Street Journal: |
Databricks is finalizing a Series K at a $100B valuation, up 61% from its December 2024 round; sources say it is co-led by Thrive and a16z plans to participate — The data analytics company, fueled by the AI boom, was valued at $62 billion less than a year ago
More: Reuters, Benzinga, Databricks, Pulse 2.0, CNBC, TechCrunch, SiliconANGLE, The Information, PYMNTS.com, PitchBook, Blocks and Files, Proactive, Cautious Optimism, FinTech Global, Investor's Business Daily, San Francisco Business Times, ITPro, Analytics India Magazine, and Reuters
X: @mmcandycheng, @tekbog, @cramforce, @bryancsk, @johnkutay, @bernhardsson, @alighodsi, @mattmurrs, @michaelferro, and @databricks
LinkedIn: Chris Klayko and Angel Au-Yeung
| CNBC: |
US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick says Intel must give the government an equity stake in the company in return for CHIPS Act funds; INTC closes up 7% — Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said Tuesday that Intel must give the U.S. government an equity stake in the company in return for CHIPS Act funds.
More: Reuters, SoftBank Group Corp., CNBC Television on YouTube, NBC News, New York Post, Bloomberg, The Guardian, New Jersey Online, The Hill, Channel NewsAsia, Research & Development World, PCMag, Oregonian, UPI, PCWorld, Reuters, TipRanks Financial, Business Insider, Bloomberg Law, Gizmodo, CNN, and Anadolu Ajansı …
Forums: r/hardware, r/intelstock, and r/technology
| Reuters: |
Sources: Nvidia is developing a new Blackwell-based AI chip for China, tentatively known as the B30A, that will be more powerful than its H20 model for China — Nvidia (NVDA.O) is developing a new AI chip for China based on its latest Blackwell architecture that will be more powerful … | Daniel Kuhn / The Block: |
Wyoming launches a stablecoin, FRNT, marking the first time a US state has issued a blockchain-based, fiat-pegged token to be used by retail and enterprises — After years of research, the Wyoming Stable Token Commission has unveiled the mainnet launch of its first official state-backed stablecoin.
More: Governor of Wyoming, PYMNTS.com, Finextra, Rain, Coinpedia Fintech News, The Daily Hodl, Fireblocks, Bloomberg, CryptoNinjas, Gizmodo, The Crypto Times, The Crypto Basic, Watcher Guru, NFTgators, Coinspeaker, Cryptonews, Decrypt, crypto.news, Blockworks, Cointelegraph, The Coin Republic, Blockonomi, Crypto Briefing, and CoinGape
Bluesky: @pdwschmidt. X: @raincards, @pavel_asparagus, @scaramucci, @primordialaa, @nic__carter, @layerzero_core, @0xpolygon, @wyostable, @avax, @wyostable, @layerzero_core, @secpaulsatkins, @solana, @avalabs, and @wyostable
| Steve Holland / Reuters: |
The White House launches an official TikTok account, with the aim of communicating President Trump's policies — The White House launched an official TikTok account on Tuesday, taking advantage of its more than 150 million U.S. users to spread the messages of President Donald Trump.
More: Le Monde, Bloomberg, The Guardian, Fox News, Telegraph, CBS News, Hindustan Times, The Hill, Ukrainian National News, India Today, and Newsweek. Bluesky: @justinling.ca
| Julie Bort / TechCrunch: |
Firecrawl, which offers an open-source web crawler for developers and AI agents, raised a $14.5M Series A led by Nexus Venture Partners — Firecrawl's co-founder and CEO Caleb Peffer knew the exact moment he found the investor to lead his Series A. — He was in a coffee meeting …
More: Firecrawl, SiliconANGLE, Tech in Asia, Techstrong IT, and GitHub
| Bloomberg: |
DeepSeek releases V3.1, adding a longer context window, with few other details; Chinese media blames CEO Liang Wenfeng's perfectionism and bugs for R2's delay — DeepSeek announced what appeared to be an update to its older V3 artificial intelligence model on Tuesday, declaring an enhanced version ready for testing.
More: Hugging Face, VentureBeat, FedScoop, Analytics India Magazine, PYMNTS.com, Financial Express, and Moneycontrol
X: @teortaxestex, @cedric_chee, @scaling01, @scaling01, @clementdelangue, @zephyr_z9, @ns123abc, @clementdelangue, and @teortaxestex. Forums: r/LocalLLaMA
| Sean Endicott / Windows Central: |
Microsoft rolls out a COPILOT function in Excel for users in the Beta Channel, letting them use text prompts to categorize data, summarize feedback, and more — AI in Excel finally feels natural thanks to the new COPILOT function. … Or rather, more Copilot is being packed into the popular spreadsheet program.
More: Microsoft Tech Community, The Verge, XDA Developers, heise online News, GeekWire, Computerworld, and How-To Geek
LinkedIn: Joe McDaid and Wyn Hopkins
| Prakhar Srivastava / Reuters: |
Tether hires Bo Hines, who stepped down as White House Crypto Council executive director earlier in August, as a strategic adviser to help it expand in the US — Cryptocurrency firm Tether has appointed former White House crypto policy executive Bo Hines as a strategic adviser to help steer … | Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: |
Meta rolls out AI-powered voice translations for creators on Facebook and Instagram globally, supporting English-Spanish translations with lip syncing — Meta is rolling out an AI-powered voice translation feature to all users on Facebook and Instagram globally, the company announced on Tuesday.
More: Facebook for Creators, 9to5Mac, CNET, Social Media Today, Engadget, Maginative, and The Verge
Threads: @jbillinson and @mosseri
| Bloomberg: |
Sources: Apple is making all four iPhone 17 models in India ahead of debut, a first, as it expands to five factories to cut reliance on China for US-bound units — Apple Inc. is expanding iPhone production in India at five factories, including a pair of recently opened plants … | Samuel Stolton / Bloomberg: |
Google proposes Play Store changes in the EU, like making it easier for developers to direct users to websites and a new tiered fee structure, after EU scrutiny — Alphabet Inc.'s Google has pitched changes to its Play Store in a bid to ward off future European Union penalties following a warning from regulators.
More: PYMNTS.com, Channel NewsAsia, MarketWatch, and Thurrott
| Robert McMillan / Wall Street Journal: |
Federal prosecutors charge an Oregon man with operating the Rapper Bot, one of the most powerful DDoS botnets ever seen, which knocked X offline earlier in 2025 — The Rapper Bot network knocked out Elon Musk's X social-media site earlier this year, cybersecurity researchers say
More: US Department of Justice, CyberScoop, Krebs on Security, Engadget, Oregonian, SiliconANGLE, and CBS News
| Krisztian Sandor / CoinDesk: |
Bullish says it has received all $1.15B in capital raised from its IPO in stablecoins, including USDC, USDG, and PYUSD, marking a first for US public markets — Stablecoins used in the settlement include dollar- and euro-pegged tokens of Circle, Paxos, PayPal, Ripple and Societe Generale, among others.| Molly White / Citation Needed: |
A look at Justin Sun's lawsuit against Bloomberg for publishing his holdings, which he claims he provided confidentially to qualify for its Billionaires Index — Listen to me read this post here (not an AI-generated voice!), subscribe to the feed in your podcast app, or download the recording for later.
Bluesky: @quinnypig.com, @darthbluesky, @molly.wiki, @molly.wiki, @molly.wiki, @molly.wiki, and @molly.wiki. Forums: r/Buttcoin
| Jonathan Stempel / Reuters: |
Google will pay $30M to settle a class action lawsuit alleging it violated kids' privacy on YouTube by collecting data without parental consent for targeted ads — Google (GOOGL.O) will pay $30 million to settle a lawsuit claiming it violated the privacy of children using YouTube by collecting …
More: dailyjournal.com, Engadget, Yahoo Finance, Bloomberg Law, TheDesk.net, and Cord Cutters News
Bluesky: @joepublic, @rayminehane, and @hypervisible.blacksky.app
| Carl Franzen / VentureBeat: |
Alibaba releases Qwen-Image-Edit, the image editing version of Qwen-Image, supporting modifications of Chinese and English text while preserving font and style — Adobe Photoshop is among the most recognizable pieces of software ever created, used by more than 90% of the world's creative professionals, according to Photutorial.
More: Qwen, Simon Willison's Weblog, The Decoder, and Analytics India Magazine
| Julia Hornstein / Business Insider: |
Austin-based Aalo Atomics, which is building a modular nuclear reactor and data center, set to finish construction in 2026, raised a $100M Series B led by Valor — - Aalo Atomics secured $100 million to develop mass-manufactured nuclear reactors. — The startup aims to mass-produce … Sponsor Posts
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